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Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books

telegraph.co.uk

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Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books

#271

Post by hinkley »

MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #261
hinkley wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's been dead for over 30 years. I'm pretty sure your money doesn't affect him one way or the other. If you don't have any friends who have parents who are morally reprehensible, then you don't have many friends.

> If you don't have any friends who have parents who are morally reprehensible, then you don't have many friends. I wouldn't judge anyone for the deeds of his parents.

Good, so buying a book whose proceeds go to the children of a long deceased person shouldn't give you pause. (or at least, you should see how far the apple fell from the tree)

Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books

#272

Post by boppo1 »

oska wrote: post #267
swatcoder wrote: post #181

Those of us who grew up near various religious communities in the second half of the twentieth century are familiar with the edited and abridged versions of media made to be more palatable to the morals of whichever community, as well as the scandals over media which were an affront to them for whatever reason. Obviously, a publisher committed to those communities and who can get the rights to do so will make a “clea…

> and forgot that secular morals can run just as puritanical I'd suggest that it is a new religion being satisfied here, that of 'wokeism'.

'Authoritarian Progressivism' is a better term going forward I think. It better specifies the set of beliefs and the formality is harder to dismiss.

Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books

#273

Post by oska »

travisgriggs wrote: post #233
bko wrote: post #15

Here's a good list of changes. Most are about removing any references to ugly or fat. But also other strange things like changing the author's Matilda likes to read to include Jane Austin and John Steinbeck, not calling people crazy, swapping screeching to annoying, removing brothers and sisters to favor "siblings" and using "folks" instead of "ladies and gentlemen" https://twitter.com/incunabula/status/1626860237104…

Ugh. I liked Matilda. But Steinbeck? Seriously? To each his own I guess. How Matilda would have been a fan of Steinback is beyond me. Much less Austin. Matilda would have been a fan of, er, uh, Dahl. And maybe Oz, Baum, Seuss, and Carroll. And any other author whose general vibe was "I kinda like to mess with the world." Definitely Orwell as she got older.

I think it's conceivable Matilda could have been a fan of Austen, but Steinbeck is a very long bow. British children still read mainly British authors and, when taking into account that Dahl is writing from his own experience as a child, that goes more than doubly for the times in which he grew up.

Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books

#274

Post by renewiltord »

DanHulton wrote: post #121
aflag wrote: post #113

I'm a non-native English speaker. What's wrong with screeching?

"Screeching" in english (at least North American english) is typically a gendered derogative. You generally wouldn't say a man was "screeching", not unless you also wanted to imply he was effeminate. By avoiding the word, you avoid insinuating the target's gender is part of the issue, and/or avoid insinuating that the target is effeminate when they "should not" be, i.e. you avoid homophobia.

Haha, this is the classic example of answering a question which was merely a rhetorical whip. I love watching this stuff in action. I agree wholesale with you.

Screeching is most definitely more commonly used for women. That doesn't make it a bad word to use.

I mean, you won't catch me dead with these bowdlerized versions. The prose is atrocious and the motives for the changes are dubious.

But screeching is high pitched and when it's used for people is used mostly for women. I'm not going to pretend it's not. That's a comical rewriting of what is true just because you don't like some other rewriting.

Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books

#276

Post by slothtrop »

bko wrote: post #15

Here's a good list of changes. Most are about removing any references to ugly or fat. But also other strange things like changing the author's Matilda likes to read to include Jane Austin and John Steinbeck, not calling people crazy, swapping screeching to annoying, removing brothers and sisters to favor "siblings" and using "folks" instead of "ladies and gentlemen" https://twitter.com/incunabula/status/1626860237104…

> not calling people crazy

Wait until they realize that every single fucking insult in existence is equally "able-ist", by definition, or otherwise offensive in some way. Is the expectation that we slowly disallow insults in culture? No, it's going to be arbitrary whitelisting. Stupid (there I go being ableist).

A change like this doesn't work as intended without fundamentally changing the narrative. If a character was insulting someone, they should still be insulting someone. Want the story to be different? Write a different fucking book.

Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books

#277

Post by mozman »

koolba wrote: post #250
bko wrote: post #15

Here's a good list of changes. Most are about removing any references to ugly or fat. But also other strange things like changing the author's Matilda likes to read to include Jane Austin and John Steinbeck, not calling people crazy, swapping screeching to annoying, removing brothers and sisters to favor "siblings" and using "folks" instead of "ladies and gentlemen" https://twitter.com/incunabula/status/1626860237104…

> In Fantastic Mr Fox a description of tractors, saying that “the machines were both black”, has been cut. In the new Dahl world, it seems, neither machines nor animals can be described with a colour. And removing any reference to color … for tractors.

This is astounding, I look forward to the time where these types of changes revert back to common sense.

Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books

#278

Post by cafard »

heavyset_go wrote: post #144
ilyt wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your triggers are your responsibility; you can just not read author instead of pushing for and celebrating desecration of their work. > once you take a position of empathy. ...and the usual thinly veiled "if you don't agree with my opinion you're a Bad Person". How about taking position of sensibility for once ?

> Your triggers are your responsibility; you can just not read author instead of pushing for and celebrating desecration of their work. The same argument can be made about people who are triggered by this edition of the book. You can just not read the new edition instead of pushing for and celebrating the silencing of its owners.

At this point, I am tempted for once to think favorably of John Randolph of Roanoke, who once proposed a law to ban the publication of bowdlerized editions of Shakespeare in the United States.

Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books

#279

Post by ok123456 »

bitwize wrote: post #110
bko wrote: post #15

Here's a good list of changes. Most are about removing any references to ugly or fat. But also other strange things like changing the author's Matilda likes to read to include Jane Austin and John Steinbeck, not calling people crazy, swapping screeching to annoying, removing brothers and sisters to favor "siblings" and using "folks" instead of "ladies and gentlemen" https://twitter.com/incunabula/status/1626860237104…

Joseph Conrad and Rudyard Kipling wrote favorably about colonialism; they were replaced with more agreeable authors. Use of gendered language is marginalizing to nonbinary people. It's easy to figure out why these changes are being made in particular, once you take a position of empathy.

I'm cringing at this unironic use of the word 'empathy'.

Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books

#280

Post by boppo1 »

travisgriggs wrote: post #233
bko wrote: post #15

Here's a good list of changes. Most are about removing any references to ugly or fat. But also other strange things like changing the author's Matilda likes to read to include Jane Austin and John Steinbeck, not calling people crazy, swapping screeching to annoying, removing brothers and sisters to favor "siblings" and using "folks" instead of "ladies and gentlemen" https://twitter.com/incunabula/status/1626860237104…

Ugh. I liked Matilda. But Steinbeck? Seriously? To each his own I guess. How Matilda would have been a fan of Steinback is beyond me. Much less Austin. Matilda would have been a fan of, er, uh, Dahl. And maybe Oz, Baum, Seuss, and Carroll. And any other author whose general vibe was "I kinda like to mess with the world." Definitely Orwell as she got older.

I like Steinbeck and don't think that Matilda ought to be a Steinbeck fan. At least they didn't make her a fan of Plath.
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